Poll: How reliable is this online tell

[Carlos]

In another thread I was critized for changing my play due to an online tell. It made me realize that I really had no idea how to quantify the reliablity of online tells. So I'm interested in your opinion on the following situation.

A weak-tight player has been at the table for an hour and has always reacted in a timely fashion unless he clearly had something to think about. In this hand he is in the BB facing 4 limpers and takes a very long pause before he checks.

Assume that for this particular player the boarderline raising hands from the BB are AQo-AJo, KQo, KJs, QJs and TT-99 corresponding to 4.2 percent of all hands.

How likely do you think it is that BB has a borderline raising hand?

[MAxx]

i would say it is almost exactly the same probability as if he acted in a timely manner. maybe a slight increase to having a borderline raising hand, but not enough to influence any decision you will be making.

i would say more often than not, that pause is b/c he is running back from the kitchen/bathroom or lost focus when changing tv channels or surfing the web, or ball scratching.

[btspider]

This should be a relative question.. "How much MORE likely...".

I must agree that he's about 5-10% more likely to be scratching himself than not in this case.

[Carlos]

[ QUOTE ]
would say more often than not, that pause is b/c he is running back from the kitchen/bathroom or lost focus when changing tv channels or surfing the web, or ball scratching.

[/ QUOTE ]

This seems particularly true for preflop pauses. Once they have put money in the pot they are probably more focused.

More often than not still leaves a lot of percentages point.

[dejableu]

I think it can be a somewhat reliable tell. It could be him running back from the bathroom or kitchen, or flipping channels on the remote. But... on the other hand, he has been consistently timely for hours. If it was your typical player who is easily distracted, I would say don't take anything from it. In this case, though, I'd say it's pretty much 50/50 as to whether he was slowing down to think about a raise.

[MAxx]

IMO it would be a better approach to play your normal game when you witness this kind of tell from a player the first time or first couple times. if you notice a pattern where a particular player pauses with good hands or whatever..... by all means use it against him.

on the other hand, i think you will be doing yourself a disservice if you start playing passively everytime someone in the BB takes a moment to ball scratch.

[stinkypete]

[ QUOTE ]

A weak-tight player has been at the table for an hour and has always reacted in a timely fashion unless he clearly had something to think about.

[/ QUOTE ]


[ QUOTE ]
i would say it is almost exactly the same probability as if he acted in a timely manner. maybe a slight increase to having a borderline raising hand, but not enough to influence any decision you will be making.

[/ QUOTE ]

it's definitely more than a "slight increase".

let's say that the average person, when pausing, is actually thinking 10% of the time and pausing for some other unknown reason 90% of the time. i think this is a very conservative estimate.

that alone tells you that there's a 10% chance he has a hand he's thinking about raising with. that's a lot more than "almost the exact same probability". and thats with no reads.

but we have a lot more information than that. we're told that he's "clearly" been thinking about something every time he's paused before. that shoots the chances that he's actually thinking about something to far greater than 10%.

it may not provide enough information to seriously influence any decisions you're making in most hands, but in otherwise really borderline situations it should be enough to push the decision one way or another.

but saying that it's "almost exactly the same probability as if he acted in a timely manner" is absurd.

[CardCuda]

I have had numerous hands that I've acted on quickly and have had a "lag" or "pause" from either my puter or the sites server, this tell is not "reliable".

PS - It's frustrating when trying to bluff a player and there is a 3-5 second delay.

[Bob T.]

Or it could mean that he had connection problems. Or you had connection problems. Or he was involved with a hand on another table. Or he thought he clicked check, but he missed, and was trying to figure out why he didn't act automatically. Or that his two year old just started screaming for milk. Or he just spilled something all over his keyboard because he was laughing so hard about the latest conspiracy theory in the 'zoo'. Or something else.

[eagletmr]

He could have been taking a piss or picking his nose or something.